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You Can Make A Difference …

January 2, 2012 By Leave a Comment

You can make a difference.

My friend Sean Anderson has lost 275 lbs, the right way – reducing calories and increasing exercise. It didn’t happen overnight. He didn’t make People Magazine’s annual “Half Their Size” issue. But he’s helping a lot of people. Sean has blogged for nearly all of the three years of his weight loss journey. He’s created some unique tools for himself, such as the “Steel Curtain Zone,” the “Calorie Bank and Trust.” In his journal today, he relates how the Rachel Ray show sought him out and then turned down an opportunity to have him on their show. Their loss.

So, Sean won’t be a celebrity this week. Instead of being a guest on the Rachel Ray show, he’s busy helping people, one at a time, to experience a shift in their thinking toward healthy weight. He writes, “My goal has never been fame and fortune. My goal is very simple: Reach as many people as I can with my experience and to communicate it in such a fashion, that somehow, maybe, just maybe…it’ll make an impact, shift someone’s perspective—the tiniest amount, but enough to help them facilitate their own “click.” Because I’ve found a sweet freedom and it would be selfish of me to keep it to myself.” I feel the same way about helping people to find a spiritual approach to living, one person at a time.

There are some great spiritual people out there – Joel Olsteen and Wayne Dyer, people who really affect the masses. There are also weight loss heroes who will make the People magazine special issue. And then there are the little nobodies like Sean Anderson and me. I wake up every day and ask God to show me how to be of service to Him and to those around me. The opportunities are often subtle and if I’m not on my game, I’ll miss them. Sean touches thousands daily with his 3,406 friends on facebook, and counting! And he’s captured his dynamic story in his recently released book, Transformation Road.

This morning I got up and made two pots of coffee – a decaf and a regular. My husband’s brother is visiting for a few days. He likes the high test, so I dig out my second pot and fix some regular for him and decaf for me. It’s the little things like that which make me feel good about myself. It’s a small spiritual moment and my brother-in-law doesn’t even know that he contributed. It can be that simple. It doesn’t have to be People Magazine or the Rachel Ray show. It can be a friend, a spouse, a co-worker, a sister or a stranger.

Can you make a difference today?

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I’m Nobody! Who Are You?

January 19, 2011 By 2 Comments

I woke up this morning with a poem by Emily Dickenson on my mind …

I’m nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there’s a pair of us — don’t tell!
They’d banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!

This is so out-of-context with my goals of a few short years ago. When Trust God and Buy Broccoli came out in 2006, I envisioned huge book signings; throngs of people streaming out the door to meet me and purchase a signed copy. Oprah would be calling for an interview; after all, I’d not only lost over one hundred pounds, but was also maintaining a healthy body size since 1993! I’d be on the spiritual speaker’s circuit, like Joyce Meyer and Dr. Wayne Dyer. My profound words would be quoted all over the world!

None of that happened.

Instead, the economy tanked out. I wondered where the money would come to pay my cell phone bill.  Clients were opting to buy groceries or hang onto their savings, rather than invest in coaching with me. Sobbing, I finally confessed to my husband. He assured me that I was neither a failure, nor would we be living under a bridge if my business did not contribute to our household budget. He told me that my job was to help people and paid my phone bill.

Something inside of me shifted that day. I saw my work in a different light, not necessarily creating a six figure income. That was the first and last time that I needed to depend on Dave to keep my coaching practice afloat. When my focus shifted to helping others, my business financial needs were also met, surely a God-thing.

This year’s vision board has no focus on public-spotlight grandeur – no pictures of Oprah, Joyce Meyer or Dr. Dyer. My goals now are strictly to help others to find the spirituality in their lives. The rewards are greater than I ever could have imagined. I’m happy and know that I’ve made a difference in the lives of others. As a nobody, I can make a difference. Maybe not on such a grand scale as the people I admire, but one person at a time, I am making a difference.

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Sailing into 2011

December 8, 2010 By 4 Comments

There are twenty-three days left in 2010. In her blog, another friend recalled her goals for this year,  and it gave me pause to consider where I was with mine for 2010.

It is a habit of mine to make a dream board in January, and hang it where I can see it often, allowing me to stay on course with an action plan. I didn’t do that in January, so no wonder why I’m struggling to recall my goals! I did go back to my old journals and was able to glean my direction. Oddly enough, even without a rudder on my ship, I sailed through a few of my goals.

I had planned to further my education this year, to the highest level for life coaches, that of a Certified Master Coach. On Sunday I will have achieved that goal –and can put some more letters behind my name! I will also be credentialed to mentor other coaches and best of all, take my coaching practice in the direction I am lead to pursue, that of Spiritual mentoring! I am proud and excited to have cared enough about my work and clients to become an expert in the field.

I’m going for a do-over on the dream board for 2011! It is fun to bring my goals to life, through words and pictures. It’s not going to slip by me again!

So, on New Year’s Eve, I’m going to sponsor a dream board party, inviting friends to bring their magazines, glue sticks and posters to my house. We’ll  have a ‘pot luck’ dinner and then spread out on the dining room table, sip some sparkling water and dream of where we want to go in the coming months. Sounds like a perfect way to visualize our direction and keep on course!

Another goal was to publish a third book, a meditation journal. That happened too. Seasons of Spirituality was borne out of a conversation  with my husband, who suggested going the route of an e-book. That has some challenges, as a 365 page pdf document is cumbersome to download. To navigate those waters, I broke it down into twelve separate books, and download them to my list every month. It has been so much fun to find quotes from years of journals, coordinate them with art and typeset the pages with lines. I am not quite finished, but releasing it in October has given me the opportunity to share it with my readers while it’s still in creation!

Thank God, there was no crazy diet this year. Seventeen years ago, I vowed to never diet again and changed my lifestyle to support healthy eating choices. I’m maintaining over a 100 lb weight loss ever since.  I never have to make that doomed resolution again. Why, if you even look at the word, you can see it’s doomed to failure … DIE-et.

I won’t wait until the last minute this year – I have the twenty-three days to daydream and plan my annual life-trip.  On December 31st, I’ll have a more clear picture on where I want to go. Where do you want to go in the upcoming year? Good question, eh?

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November – the Gratitude Month

November 15, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Gratitude

I am someone who looks at the positive things in my life more often than dwelling on the negative. I once heard that if my cup is always just half empty (or half full), get a smaller cup! With an attitude like this, my life is always overflowing with wonder.

Many recognize November as a gratitude month, and that suits me! For a long time, I’ve kept a gratitude list, recording at least five things each day for which I am grateful.

On Friday, a friend of mine lost her husband. I called to extend my condolences and thought about how much I love my husband Dave, even though he can get on my nerves at times. Suddenly, his corny jokes were funny again. I guess that Wayne Dyer was on point when he wrote, “When we change the way we look at things, the things we look at change.”

For many years, my parents, five siblings and their families converged on the home of my youngest sister in North Carolina to celebrate Thanksgiving. At last count, there were twenty-seven of us. Now there are many more, as our children raise families of their own,

Our Thanksgiving celebration always started with the entire brood attending Mass at Sandy’s church. Later, the brothers became gourmet chefs for the day, and the meals were always sumptuous! The women, children and any non-cooking brothers raked leaves on their rather large country front lawn. What fun, making big piles of leaves, jumping into them and acting like children! We probably made a bigger mess than actually helping my brother-in-law!

Sandy rented a big tent so we could all be together for the meal. One year Sandy’s husband Craig, asked that we all take a turn to say one thing for which we were grateful. Most of us shared how wonderful it was to have such a great, loving family. Yumi, their foreign exchange student from Japan attempted to speak but was so overcome with emotion that she just started crying and buried herself on Craig’s chest.

Now our families have grown and we no longer make the pilgrimage to Sandy’s place. It’s a fond memory though!

November seems to be a perfect month for gratitude, so I decided to record one thing every day on my facebook page. I am also making at least one phone call a day to thank the people in my life. It seems like such gestures when I really look at, and acknowledge the abundance in my life.

I’d like to challenge you for the rest of November, to find one thing a day that makes you happy. So, what are you grateful for? I bet you don’t stop at one!

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